urely, it may be called, when the intuitive faculties are either
destroyed or impaired. In one of the inner rooms of this gallery is a
despairing wretch, imploring Heaven for mercy, whose brain is crazed
with lip-labouring superstition, the most dreadful enemy of human kind;
which, attended with ignorance, error, penance and indulgence, too often
deprives its unhappy votaries of their senses. The next in view is one
man drawing lines upon a wall, in order, if possible, to find out the
longitude; and another, before him, looking through a paper, by way of a
telescope. By these expressive figures we are given to understand that
such is the misfortune of man, that while, perhaps, the aspiring soul is
pursuing some lofty and elevated conception, soaring to an uncommon
pitch, and teeming with some grand discovery, the ferment often proves
too strong for the feeble brain to support, and lays the whole magazine
of notions and images in wild confusion. This melancholy group is
completed by the crazy tailor, who is staring at the mad astronomer with
a sort of wild astonishment, wondering, through excess of ignorance,
what discoveries the heavens can possibly afford; proud of his
profession, he has fixed a variety of patterns in his hat, by way of
ornament; has covered his poor head with shreds, and makes his measure
the constant object of his attention. Behind this man stands another,
playing on the violin, with his book upon his head, intimating that too
great a love for music has been the cause of his distraction. On the
stairs sits another, crazed by love, (evident from the picture of his
beloved object round his neck, and the words "charming Betty Careless"
upon the bannisters, which he is supposed to scratch upon every wall and
every wainscot,) and wrapt up so close in melancholy pensiveness, as not
even to observe the dog that is flying at him. Behind him, and in the
inner room, are two persons maddened with ambition. These men, though
under the influence of the same passion, are actuated by different
notions; one is for the papal dignity, the other for regal; one imagines
himself the Pope, and saying mass; the other fancies himself a King, is
encircled with the emblem of royalty, and is casting contempt on his
imaginary subjects by an act of the greatest disdain. To brighten this
distressful scene, and draw a smile from him whose rigid reasoning might
condemn the bringing into public view this blemish of humanity, are two
w